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Volume 1, Chapter I.

"IN THE WEST COUNTREE."

"Take care, Mr Luke Vine, sir. There's a big one coming."

The thin, little, sharp featured, grey haired man on a rock looked
sharply round, saw the big one coming, stooped, picked up a large
basket, and, fishing rod in hand, stepped back and climbed up a few
feet, just as a heavy swell, which seemed to glide along rapidly over
the otherwise calm sea, heaved, flooded the rock on which he had been
standing, ran right up so high as to bathe his feet, then sank back in a
series of glittering falls which sparkled in the glorious sunshine:
there was a hissing and sighing and sucking noise among the rocks, and
the wave passed on along the rugged coast, leaving the sea calm and
bright once more.

"Many a poor lad's been took like that, Mr Luke, sir," said the
speaker, "and never heard of again. Why, if I hadn't called out, it
would have took you off your legs, and the current's so strong here
you'd have been swept away."

"And there'd been an end of me, Polly, and nobody a bit the worse, eh?"

The last speaker seemed to fill his sharp, pale face full of tiny
wrinkles, and reduced his eyes to mere slits, as he looked keenly at the
big robust woman at his side. She was about fifty, but with her black
hair as free from grey as that of a girl, her dark eyes bright, and her
sun tanned face ruddy with health, as she bent forward with a great
fish basket supported on her back by means of a broad leather strap
passed over her print sun bonnet and across her forehead.

"Nobody the worse, Mr Luke, sir?" cried the woman. "What a shame to
talk like that! You arn't no wife, nor no child, but there's Miss
Louise."

"Louisa, woman, Louisa," said the fisher sharply.

"Well, Louisa, sir. I only want to be right; but it was only yes'day as
old Miss Vine, as stood by when I was selling her some hake, shook her
finger at me and said I was to say Miss Louise."

"Yes, sir; that ought to fetch 'em," said the woman in a sing song way,
as the elderly man gave the glistening bait at the end of his running
line a deft swing and sent it far out into the bright sea. "I've seen
the water boiling sometimes out there with the bass leaping and playing.
What, haven't you caught none, sir?"

"No, Polly, not one; so just be off about your business, and don't worry
me with your chatter."

"Oh, I'm a going, sir," said the woman good humouredly; "only I see you
a fishing, and said to myself, `Maybe Mr Luke Vine's ketched more than
he wants, and he'd like to sell me some of 'em for my customers.'"

"And I haven't seen a bass this morning, so be off."

"Toe be sure, Mr Luke Vine, sir; and when are you going to let me come
up and give your place a good clean? I says to my 'Liza up at your
brother's, sir, only yes'day "

"Don't be criss cross, sir, I'm going," said the woman, giving her
basket a hitch. "Here's Miss Louise isa coming down the rocks with
Miss Madlin."

"Hang her confounded chatter!" snarled the fisher, as he drew out his
bait, unwound some more line, and made another throw, "bad as those
wretched stamps."

He cast an angry glance up at the mining works high on the cliff side,
whose chimney shaft ran along the sloping ground till it reared itself
in air on the very top of the hill, where in constant repetition the
iron shod piles rose and fell, crushing the broken ore to powder. "A
man might have thought he'd be free here from a woman's tongue."

He gave another glance behind him, along the rocky point which jutted
out several hundred yards, and formed a natural breakwater to the
estuary, which ran, rock sheltered, right up into the land, and on
either side of which were built rugged flights of natural steps, from
the bright water's edge to where, five hundred feet above, the grey
wind swept masses of granite looked jagged against the sky... Continue reading book >>